2023 was a brutal year for the journalism indsutry, with at least 8,000 job cuts in the UK, US and Canada , according to Press Gazette’s analysis. The tide continued early on in 2024, with around 1,000 people affected by closures and rounds of redundancies in January alone. All types of publisher features on the below list: from legacy newspaper brands to digital natives, and from commercial operations to non-profit newsrooms.
Many of the cutbacks so far this year have affected US media outlets but April appears to be seeing a ramp up in the UK with GB News, Open Democracy, the Mail and The Times all facing redundancies of various numbers alongside The Wall Street Journal stateside. Other UK job losses have come at Pink News, i-D Magazine and Design Week, and as part of international cuts to the likes of Vice and Business Insider. Press Gazette’s conservative estimate puts the total journalism industry job cuts in the UK, US, Ireland and Canada on at least 980 in January (compared to around 983 in the same month last year), 615 in February and 30 in March.
News start-up The Messenger, Sports Illustrated and music website Pitchfork all effectively closed in January, as did Centaur Media’s Design Week. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times cut 20% of its newsroom and Mediahuis Ireland wants to cut 10% of jobs through voluntary redundancies. The difficulties continued into February, with a 16% cut to staff at Buzzfeed, and double-digit job losses at the Wall Street Journal, Eng.
